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1. Okay, I know it's important and all, but damn, am I ever tired of hearing about health care reform. 2. And, for that matter, Sarah Palin. Has everybody forgotten that she quit her job right in the middle of her term? How can Hannity/Rush/Beck/ et al have such a giant hard-on for this lady? She's a quitter! 3. Speaking of those folks, I'm just not sure who I want to punch more in this interview. You only need to watch about a minute and a half. She STILL can't name a Supreme Court case. She calls it, unironically, the "lamestream media". Wow, is she ever annoying. But Hannity is no better. He's such a smug little dinkwad. ( Other, non-political things under here. Sixteen more list points! )Current Mood:  cheerful
Current Music: Willie Nelson - Uncloudy Day
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Okay, listen, I know full well that it's totally unfair of me to expect everybody to have the same understanding of evolution than I do. After all, I went to school and got a degree called "Ecology and Evolutionary Biology", and I got yelled at as a senior for taking too many evolution classes and too few ecology ones. I tried to argue that my seminar on the species-area curve (see ECOL496R here) should have counted, since the SAC is, at heart, an ecological phenomenon, but they laughed at me and told me that counted as an applied math class. Which, honestly, it was. That was the class where the midterm was a)the hardest test I've ever taken and b) exactly one question long. Here, wanna see it? 1. Given the extinction rates found by Case (1975), when will the current mass extinction end? That was it. Wowsers. Okay, anyway, I know that not everybody thinks about evolution in the way I do, by which I mostly mean "before they post". But dammit, it still bugs me when people think they know what they're talking about. And then yell at other people (who may also be wrong, just wrong in a different way) as if they know more than the other guy does! Current Mood:  annoyed
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Shee-ra Hambone and I are torrenting this season's version of Top Chef, mostly because Hell's Kitchen is over for the year. It's not as good of a show as HK, but food reality show beggars can't be choosers. We did the same thing for TC that we do for HK, in that we picked somebody to root for based solely on first impressions. At the end of the opening credits of the first episode, you have to choose your champion. For TC, Shee-ra Hambone lucked out and chose Kevin, who's been kicking ass and taking names. I, on the other hand, Ash, because hey, Ash is awesome. Unfortunately, the TC Ash sucked and got kicked off. ( More under here... )Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: we're off to Punk Rock Bowling!
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The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree*. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have tried to overmaster other species in the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was small, budding twigs; and this connexion of the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups**. Of the many twigs which flourished when the tree was a mere bush***, only two or three, now grown into great branches, yet survive and bear all the other branches; so with the species which lived during long-past geological periods, very few now have living and modified descendants. From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these lost branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only from having been found in a fossil state****. As we here and there see a thin straggling branch springing from a fork low down in a tree, and which by some chance has been favoured and is still alive on its summit, so we occasionally see an animal like the Ornithorhynchus***** or Lepidosiren******, which in some small degree connects by its affinities two large branches of life, and which has apparently been saved from fatal competition by having inhabited a protected station. As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications. Nice passage, ain't it? ( footnotes under here... )Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Penn & Teller's Bullshit TV show
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Well, I won't be dressing in ladies' underwear tonight. This is for purely monetary reasons. My girlfriend has the bauplan of a Scandinavian farmgirl, of the sort that might spend her free time throwing hay bales into the upper level of the family barn. Even so, she's not nearly large enough to allow me to wear her stuff. I, after all, am a sizable fellow. 6'3", 230lbs. I could probably get into a pair of her panties, since those tend to stretch and she has a hilariously flat white girl butt, but that's not really the problem. It was pointed out at work today that the number in a girl's bra size is roughly analogous to the number in guy's suit size. As such, she's at least six inches too small around. Now, I could go to Target and buy a giant old granny bra (...not that old grannies tend to have giant chest sizes, but in my head that's the only description of a 44-incher), but that seems like way more work than I want to put into this costume. Do I really want to go spend $15 or $20 on something that I'll wear once, and under my clothes at that? Seems like a lot of money for something that nobody will ever see! For any of you ladies, however, who want to go out tonight but don't want to wear a costume, I think it'd be totally acceptable to dress nicely (as if you were going clubbing on a non-Halloween night, I mean) and head out to a bar. Then, when a drunken guy wearing a dopey Walmart costume hits on you by asking what you're going as, just tell him you're a lumberjack. If he gets it, he's worth going home with. This will work better if you're wearing a beard, of course. Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: I chop down trees, I skip and jump...
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Tomorrow night, I'll be attending Shee-ra Hambone's brother's house party. I'm going as a lumberjack, which isn't really much of a stretch, costume-wise. I already owned boots, canvas pants, a whole bunch of flannel shirts, facial hair, and a hat. I picked up suspenders, an even larger fake beard, and I'll make a cardboard axe tomorrow. I would just use a real axe, but hey, axes and drinking don't really mix. I only have one problem: I'm a big Monty Python fan. And so I sit here wondering what should go underneath. Thankfully, LJ has a poll feature! Tell me: how specifically lumberjacky should I be? Poll #1478694
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14 What to wear.....? Current Mood:  thoughtful
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Today I'm officially closer to being 40 than I am to being 20. I'm having a whole lot of trouble believing that's such a bad thing, though. I mean, when I was 20, I didn't know shit about shit. Granted, there's still all sorts of things I don't know anything about, like how to replace an electrical fixture or paint a picture or ensure fair elections in Afghanistan, but I'd like to think that all in all, it's a lot better to be 30 than to be 20. And given that, I'd suspect that a decade from now, I'll look back and think that when you're 30, you don't know shit about shit. It's just that getting out of bed to think such thoughts will be a lot harder then than it is now, since my joints will be all arthritic and I'll spend most of my time complaining about how easy the young whippersnappers have it these days. WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE, WE HAD TO LISTEN TO WHATEVER THE RADIO STATION DECIDED TO PLAY AND WE HAD TO WALK TO SCHOOL IN THE SNOW UPHILL BOTH WAYS AND WE THOUGHT THAT MICHAEL KEATON MADE A FINE BATMAN, SO GET OFF MY LAWN YOU LITTLE PUNKS! Current Mood:  old
Current Music: Mozart - Cosi fan tutti's overture
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(The Enterprise is orbiting a red and white planet.) KIRK: Well, Mister Spock? SPOCK: Very typical, Captain. Iron-silicon base, oxygen-hydrogen atmosphere, largely arid, no discernible life. No surprises. KIRK: Photographic section, begin scanning. Tie in to visual section 988-TG, computer bank 22. Kirk out. About four more orbits ought to do it, Mister Lesley. That'll wrap it up. Lay in a course for Starbase 200. LESLEY: Aye, aye, Captain. SPOCK: Captain. (Something suddenly rocks the ship. We see a shot of a nebula superimposed on top of the crew being shaken.) KIRK: Mister Spock! SPOCK: Incredible, Captain. (Ship rocks again.) KIRK: What was that? SPOCK: What my instruments read is totally unbelievable, Captain. Twice, for a split second each time, everything within range of our instruments seemed on the verge of winking out. Current Mood:  amused
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9 August The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It turns out that the schooner is Russian from Varna, and is called the Demeter. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargo, a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould. This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor, Mr. S.F. Billington, of 7, The Crescent, who this morning went aboard and took formal possession of the goods consigned to him. The Russian consul, too, acting for the charter-party, took formal possession of the ship, and paid all harbour dues, etc. Nothing is talked about here today except the strange coincidence. The officials of the Board of Trade have been most exacting in seeing that every compliance has been made with existing regulations. As the matter is to be a 'nine days wonder', they are evidently determined that there shall be no cause of other complaint. A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S.P.C.A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found. It seems to have disappeared entirely from the town. It may be that it was frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it is still hiding in terror. There are some who look with dread on such a possibility, lest later on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce brute. Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred mastiff belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway opposite its master's yard. It had been fighting, and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit open as if with a savage claw. Current Mood:  relaxed
Current Music: Bust Your Windows - Jazmine Sullivan
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Okay, any of us who has ever been to The Dome knows that it's the worst venue in all of professional sports. It's a pit. The seats suck, the roof sucks, the field sucks, the bathrooms suck, the food is amazing, the traffic sucks, and most years the teams suck. But this is the last year for the Twins and the Gophers headed back to campus this season. That leaves the Vikings. They have a game you might have heard about there tonight. But according to Forbes, the Vikes are the second most-worthless team in the league. Only the Raiders, who have an amazingly terrible quarterback are more fiscally discouraging, and that's probably mostly due to absolutely batshit insane ownership, not stadium issues. ( Sports, money, constitutional law. What more could you want from an entry? )Current Mood: good
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Hey, remember a couple of years ago (...and by "a couple", I kind of mean "eight or nine") when I was trying my best to convince everybody I knew to switch to using Hushmail, because I'm a giant privacy dork? aside: this is the point in the conversation where Shee-ra Hambone pointed out that absolutely everything I post here on LJ is public. IRONY, I CAN HAS IT. Anyway, I haven't really been keeping up on the encryption stuff lately. Too many interests, too little time. And, you know, video games. Well, looks like Hushmail isn't as secure as I had hoped. Or, rather, it is secure, but only if you're willing to be inconvenienced. If you take the nice simple web-based encryption system, the Canadians can read anything you write whenever they want. The java-based encryption option is waaaay more secure, but is kind of a pain in the butt. ( Privacy nerd-ary under this cut... )Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: Mozart - Cosi Fan Tutte's first movement
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On February 19, 1942, just two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. You can read the full text here (I love the dial-up warning!), but the important bit is this: ...I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. That sure sounds like it'd violate all sorts of constitutional rights, but the Supreme Court ruled otherwise in 1944. Let's see if I can resist ranting about how the Federal government kinda sucks long enough to show off pictures of the direct result of having them seize your freedom. ( If Woodrow Wilson hadn't sent ships filled with influenza infected soldiers to (then-influenza-free) Europe, I'd say this might be the worst thing an American president ever did to his citizens... )Current Mood: gah!
Current Music: Beethoven's 6th
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Dear Answers In Genesis, Although it's certainly true that Linnaeus created our modern system of binomial nomenclature (species, genus, family, order...) well before Darwin wrote The Origin, which means that it could technically be used as a phenetical system, nobody actually uses it as such anymore. In fact, I would argue that using binomial nomenclature directly implies an acceptance of a cladistic mindset. And that, of course, implies common descent. Which you don't believe in. So knock it off. Sincerely yours, me Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: The Super Mario theme is stuck in my head
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I'm a firm believer that the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game is one that can only be won by making a chain that is as beautiful as possible. That's why I really love this one, which I did while at work today so that I didn't have to use Mr. Magoo. Leslie Neilsen was in Airplane! with Lloyd Bridges, who was in High Noon with Gary Cooper, who was in Sergeant York with Walter Brennan, who was in Rio Bravo with John Wayne, who was in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance with Lee Marvin, who was in The Dirty Dozen with Donald Sutherland, who was in Animal House with Kevin Bacon. It's nice to note that Walter Brennan was also in The Far Country with Jimmy Stewart, who was the man who thought he had shot Liberty Valance but in reality didn't, so you could go there via that movie instead. And, honestly, Brennan was probably in a bunch of other films that I'm not remembering or which I didn't see at all. Heck, he was also in Red River, which is my third-all-time favorite western, and which also stars John Wayne. So many links, so few slots! I'm just not sure Red River makes for a prettier list than Rio Bravo. I like the flow of the Spanish words better, I think, even though the movie is inferior. (My first two are The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and The Big Country, if you were wondering.) Current Mood: good
Current Music: Todd Snider - Godsend
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gwangi's journal
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